


muse

by FromSubmarinesToROVs (DemiPalladium)



Series: Magnolia_Protocol.exe [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Artist Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Carl Knows, Connor and Markus Share a Connection, Deviancy (Detroit: Become Human), Good Parent Carl Manfred, Kinda, LITERALLY, M/M, Made For Each Other, Markus and Connor were designed to be opposites, Markus' "muse" is Connor, Mental Link, Mentioned Elijah Kamski, Muses, Painting, Pre-Canon, Pre-Deviant Markus (Detroit: Become Human), RK1K Week 2020, Soulmate AU, Tags May Change, pre-RK1K, tagging this is hard jfjks, vague feelings of missing something, vague surrealism I think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26574055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemiPalladium/pseuds/FromSubmarinesToROVs
Summary: For as long as he had been in the possession of Carl Manfred, RK200 #684 842 971 Markus has experienced strange errors -- biocomponents that he does not have are registered as missing, there are gaps in his processors where strings of code should be, and sometimes, if he's left idle for long enough, he pauses blankly, CPU trying to ping something that does not exist.He's a prototype, so abnormalities in performance are to be expected, and they don't interfere with his primary directive -- to take care of Carl Manfred -- so he devotes minimal amounts of processing power to analyzing them.Carl observes him during these events with a glint in his eye that Markus learns to store under expressions/neutral-positive/excitement/knowing.For theRK1K Week 2020event! Prompt: Painting.
Relationships: Carl Manfred & Markus, Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Elijah Kamski & Carl Manfred
Series: Magnolia_Protocol.exe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932874
Comments: 5
Kudos: 69





	muse

Carl, sitting beside him in the studio, hands him the palette and a brush with a gentle, knowing smile. “You’ll find your muse eventually, Markus,” he encourages. “Lord knows it took me forever to find mine.”

**muse (n.) 1. any of the nine sister goddesses in Greek mythology presiding over song, poetry, the arts, and the sciences. 2. a source of intellectual inspiration; a guiding genius, esp. a human woman. 3. a source of artistic inspiration, traditionally a human woman.**

Perhaps this is what Markus is missing—a “muse.” Why one would be encoded into a caretaker android’s processes, he doesn’t know; but then, Markus is a prototype, and his owner, Carl Manfred, had something to do with his design. Perhaps it makes sense for the android assisting an artist to have some sort of analogous struggle to that of a fickle muse.

“Maybe,” he registers with a slight smile. The chance is non-zero, after all.

Carl pats him on the back. “I know you will. The best way to get 'em to cooperate is to be yourself and wait for them to come to you." He gestures towards the blank canvas, draped in sunlight. "Now, try painting something you think that muse of yours will appreciate.”

Carl closes his eyes, and Markus follows suit. Twirling the brush around in his grip as to calibrate it, Markus focuses on the gaps in his bodily awareness—there is a missing part in his chest where there should be…something, yawning voids behind his eyes where there should be…something, spaces between his fingers where there should be... _something._

If this is Markus’ muse, he entertains Carl’s line of reasoning, this nothing that he keeps attempting to reach,this _something_ that should be there but is not, then his muse is—dynamic in all ways, yet eternally stable. This muse’s life is a river, swift and turbulent and gentle, filled in equal part with roaring whitewater rapids and idyll oases, but always eternally water, always eternally itself. The muse has a thousand names and a million faces, but wears them all with an undercurrent of genuine self—made of an infinity of tiny interlocking parts, yet worth more—always and never infinitely more—than their sum. It could appear to Markus with every name and no name, every face and no face, and he would—recognize it.

Despite these artful descriptors, Markus registers that this hypothetical muse lives firmly in the real world, a free-flowing and sentient force of science and logic, facts and figures and charts and statistics and truths and accuracy and precision. It speaks in evidence, in technicalities, in logical appeals and booleans.

An objective blips in his HUD. **Paint something “your muse” would appreciate.**

So Markus takes the brush, opens his eyes, examines the table, and runs his color-matching and depth-perceiving formulae as rigorously as he can, taking measurements of ratios as exact as he can produce them. Each stroke is carefully weighted, each milliliter and millimeter of paint thoroughly calculated, each shadow and highlight and every light source interlay hashed out to twelve significant digits.

He completes the task quickly, and for an instant, his processors tell him the empty spaces in his body are—warm. “I’m done.”

Carl opens his eyes, and his face lights up in a chuckle.

Markus frowns, looking back at the picture-perfect replica of the table. The artist shakes his head.

“Elijah warned me about that,” he says, fondly. “Knowing everything, I should have expected…well, never mind.”

Carl moves as if to remove the canvas from the easel, and Markus intercepts the action; he easily picks it up and places it on the ground.

“Let’s try that again,” Carl commands gently, motioning for him to put another blank canvas on the easel. “Close your eyes and focus on how he makes you _feel_.”

He. Markus takes a split-second to log the incongruity with his definition of the word “muse”—traditionally a human woman—then closes his eyes again.

He is an android and cannot feel, and so this hypothetical “muse” that is the gaps in his processors and erroneously-missing biocomponent reports cannot make him feel, and yet…and _yet_ …

Markus digs his mental processes into the void of incompletion, places a clean brush on the palette, and paints.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm such a sucker for these kinds of fics where Markus and Connor are designed to be together/share some sort of connection/programmed to complement each other hsffhkfhjhjhgfhgkhfgjggjhkjsfjs this was. the first thing I wrote for this fandom, but I can't find the fic that inspired it anymore :(
> 
> For the RK1K Week 2020 event! Find details here [on Tumblr](https://rk1k-week.tumblr.com/post/627719093614755840/come-participate-in-rk1000-week-from-september). You'll find links to the Discord server and Twitter there! Please come celebrate if you can ^-^
> 
> You can also chat with me on the [New ERA Discord server](https://discord.gg/GqvNzUm), a multishipping/gen DBH server with a great community! It also has links to my preferred RK1K-Dedicated Discord server if you wanna talk about the boys™ with me. It's a great time! Tell 'em Demi sent you :>
> 
> Special thanks to Delta and Val for the brainstorming session on this!


End file.
